The Dagwood!

How many folks have a food named for them? Not many, but among that elite is most certainly the inestimable Dagwood Bumstead, who penchant for gigantic sandwiches has made his name literally a household item.

Here's a heaping helping of vintage Dagwood sandwich-themed covers.

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The Color Of Dracula!

Marvel struck a rich vein indeed when they took advantage of changes in the Comics Code to branch out into monsters. Tomb of Dracula was a masterwork, one of the finest series of the Bronze Age. Likewise, Dracula found some success, at least for a time, in the black and white Dracula Lives series.

Roy Thomas and the late great Dick Giordano took advantage of all this Dracula comic page count to attempt an adaptation of the original novel by Bram Stoker. They worked diligently for many issues but alas did not finish, at least not for nearly thirty years when their version of the classic tale was at long last completed and published in glorious black, white, and red by Marvel in four lovely comic books.

Those comics were later collected and color by June Chung was added to the artwork. I've at long last added this brighter rendition of the story to my stacks, a handsome hardback collection of this magnificent work. Sadly, it's clear that Giordano's skills had diminished slightly by the time he was able to bring this classic story to a conclusion, but only slightly. The art looks fantastic in black and white thanks to Giordano's always crisp line work, and I have to say it looks pretty dang good in glorious color too.

Earlier this summer I re-read the classic Stoker novel, and I'm eager to re-read this vivid adaptation. 

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The Villainy Of Doctor Doom!

Here's a gem I discovered at my new favorite store Half-Price Books. This reprint volume showcasing this absolutely awesome cover image of Doc Doom by Jack "King" Kirby has long been on my want list, but somehow I missed it and never chanced across another. But yesterday I found it for good dough and snagged it up.

It begins with Victor Von Doom's origin tale by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Chic Stone. This is a masterful tale, elegantly and efficiently told in the second Fantastic Four Annual.

Then we have the famous two-part tale by Lee, Kirby and Vince Colletta co-starring "The Man Without Fear". Daredevil hooks up with the Fab Four to fend off one of Doom's most insidious plots.

But the story I really bought the collection for was the epic four-part tale which takes the gang to Latveria, Doom's very lair. This Lee and Kirby story, clearly inspired by The Prisoner, is a whopper of a story featuring great great artwork by Kirby and Joe Sinnott.  Kirby's hand in the plotting of the books is clearly evident in this grand story, long one of my favorite FF yarns. I see many elements of this story in Kirby's later Fourth World work.

The collection  closes out with John Byrne's worthy rendition of the bad Doctor, when he lures them into one of his most fiendish traps. Great period for the team and a top story from that run.

Doctor Doom is perhaps Marvel's greatest villains, despite the fact his big-screen appearances were rather bland. (He did get better in the second FF movie, I'll give them that.) It's neat to see this vintage trade dedicated to the darker aspects of the Marvel Universe.

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Frodorealism!

I'm closing out my summer with another reading of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings. It's been at least a decade since I've read any of this and longer still since I read the whole shebang, so it's a good thing all around. Like any book or story you think you know well, it's always fascinating to make fresh connections and find new things based on the differences you bring to the text as a reader.

That said, with all things Tolkien on my mind, I was moved to finally pick up the relatively recent volume The Tolkien Years of the Brothers Hildebrandt. I was among those fortunate folk who was able to collect up the famous Hildebrandt Tolkien calendars as they appeared in 1976 through 1978. Sadly I wasn't prescient enough to hang onto them, but those classic images remained burned into my imagination. So it's neat to finally have a collection of them to look at and examine alongside a raft of the prepping materials the brothers used.

Since the untimely passing of Tim Hildebrandt back in 2006, we are left limited insights from him, but his brother Greg is on hand to inject some behind-the-scenes perspective. The  bulk of the text though in this volume is by Greg Hildebrandt Jr. who was a mere lad when the classic images were created and he offers up a novel look at the work itself. Sadly his perspective is not to my mind worth the  space it is permitted in this volume, so I skipped over a lot of it. 

That said, the art is still the point of this book and all the classic stuff is  here presented as they were created for the three calendars and beyond. Looking at the Hildebrandt stuff now, it seems stiff and oddly fixed in time and the attempt at what the Brothers dubbed "Frodorealism" doesn't work as often as I remember. Their renditions of certain characters have been superseded by other artists over the decades, but there is no denying their lasting impact on the overall imagination, at least my imagination.

It's nice to have this artwork in my mitts again, reminding me of the first times I traveled to Middle Earth.

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Back In A Flash!

Well I've done it again. I bought the simply outstanding Flash Gordon serials from the 30's and 40's again. It seems I've been buying these over and over again since the earliest days of VHS. One of the first VHS tapes I ever picked up for my very own was a knock-off of 1940's Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. That soon was followed by the feature version of the 1936 original serial re-titled Rocketship. It would be a few years before I got to see 1938's  Flash Gordon Goes to Mars, but I found them in a very handsome boxed set. Then later DVDs appeared and I had to buy them again.

And now I find those same DVDs repackaged in this handsome "Collectible Video-Book" which offers up the complete trilogy along with a rather neat booklet detailing the history and content of the strip and the influence of Alex Raymond. Raymond art graces this booklet which might well be worth the sawbuck price of this package all on its own.

So if you're looking for a neat way to spend about seven hundred and fifty minutes, check out this classic series. This is a nifty and cheap way to own them all.

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Final Echoes Of Thunder!

Andy Kubert

After thoroughly enjoying the first volume of DC's most recent adaptation of the classic Wally Wood project T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, I discovered there was a six-part second volume of this story. But sadly it had not been collected into a trade, apparently due to poor sales and the apparent fact that DC lost the license to IDW. So I was left with the prospect of having to dig up back issues. I got fortunate. I was able to find the six issues.

Jerry Ordway

The story picks up right where the first volume left off and offers up a rather satisfying denoument to the whole saga. I won't discuss it to spare anyone who might want to read it, and frankly to discuss it at any length would spoil it, but I will say that while I didn't find it as strong a story as the first six-issue arc, it was perhaps stronger than the second with some outstanding surprises throughout. Among those surprises were artistic turns by Jerry Ordway and Walt Simonson, each contributing a few key pages to the storyline.

Walt Simonson

The Agents are pitted against the Subterraneans, a classic enemy but presented this time with more complexity and sympathy. There is also included a neat little two-part adventure starring a completely revamped Undersea Agent. I have to give this rendition of the Agents a thumbs up, and I recommend both volumes, but sadly you'll have to scrounge for the second.

Here's what they look like.

Frazier Irving

Dustin Nguyen

Rafael Albequerque

Kenneth Rocafort

Cafu & Val Stapes

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Bazooka Joe!

Here's a simply delightful offering from Abrams Comicarts. Bazooka Joe and his Gang takes a detailed and colorful look at the history of one of the most ubiquitous comic stars of the last half century. Bazooka Joe comics come "free" with any piece of Bazooka gum, colorfully arranged on the classic waxy paper which encases the pink scrumptiousness of class bubble gum. Alongside a fortune and a hokey ad for some useless crap, the customer can always count on a goofy joke with their chewy sweetness.  That's a bargain my friends.

I was totally won over by this book when I saw the dustjacket was fabricated in a similar paper to what encased the original product and that the book itself is made to look like a large piece of delicious bubble gum. These kinds of delightful details make for a completely absorbing package which is chock full of info on the history and development of the Bazooka Joe crew.

The most time is spent discussing Wesley Morse, a hugely talented catoonist who worked diligently through the decades before landing the Bazooka Joe contract. He is now almost equally famous for his contributions to what are called the Tijuana Bibles, brisk and lively bits of pornography. These eight-page booklets have been documented, but little is actually known about these little precursors to the Underground comics of a later day.

Morse produced a number of these, many having to do with in some way or other the 1939 World's Fair. Here is a glimpse, but be careful as this is not at all workplace safe. Many years later Morse brought his lively cartooning style to the Bazooka Joe gang, basing the look of Joe himself on his own son Talley (who contributes a very detailed article to this book).

Below are a couple of my favorite Bazooka Joe comics. These are not by Morse, but come from a later series.

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